Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Alpha Should Begin Around October End

The alpha test for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn should begin around the end of October, says producer, Naoki Yoshida, in his latest Letter from the Producer column.

Yoshida also provided an interesting statistic in his latest letter—the amount of fans that want the current version of Final Fantasy XIV to remain online after A Realm Reborn launches. Here are the results of a poll Square Enix conducted, asking that very question:

Q. Would you still want to continue playing the current version of Final Fantasy XIV after November 11, 2012, even if none of the character data accumulated beyond that date was carried over to your Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn account?

35.4% of fans keeping their eyes on the game voted “Yes,” while the remaining voted “No”. Yoshida says the plan was to keep the servers for the current version of the game open as long as 30% of fans asked for it.

As previously reported, the current version of Final Fantasy XIV will record character data up until November 1st, and players will be able to transfer this into A Realm Reborn. On November 11th, the game will be taken down, and once preparations for the launch of A Realm Reborn are complete, vanilla Final Fantasy XIV servers will go up again a few days later.

However, no further patches or fixes will be made to the vanilla game, as the team will shift their focus entirely to A Realm Reborn instead. Yoshida says that the servers for vanilla Final Fantasy XIV will remain open as long as 30% of players continue to use them. If the number of users drops below 30%, the servers will be taken down again, and a long-term decision regarding the older version of the game will have to be made.

That’s pretty cool that the 30% who want it will still get to play it even though the majority is in favor of letting it die.

Crevox

Not so much “letting it die”, but yeah I guess.

Akuosa

He understood what he read here just fine, I think, it’s not his fault. The person who wrote this is the one who has no idea what they asked. They cite the original question and even follow up interpreting it correctly… but in the previous paragraph they say “the amount of fans that want the current version of Final Fantasy XIV to remain online after A Realm Reborn launches”.
What?

Solomon_Kano

The question asked if they’d still like to play the current version after A Realm Reborn launches. I said it’s cool that the people who do want to play it still will be able to even though most of the current players apparently wouldn’t care to.

Did I miss something? What part says that I didn’t understand?

Benny Tormoes

And not a single anything was given that day.

riceisnice

Untrue. I gave my heart… To you.

Trotmeister

The old and the new FFXIV will not be online simultaneously. This was never up for discussion. Rather than that, the question is, should old FFXIV stay online while A Realm Reborn is being prepared for launch. So, basically, it will be brought back sometime in November, and then shut down for good several months later when Reborn is ready. Or even sooner, if player interest wanes further.

Draparde

I know i probably couldent bring myself to play 1.0 once my progress stops being saved…so i voted no to keeping the servers up lol. its still nice that he’s keeping it up for the 30%. i may hop on occasionally if i’m bored.

CirnoLakes

I haven’t logged in in a while, much to my chagrin. I heard something about bonses and things for people who are playing the current version of XIV right now. But I don’t know how it all works, or even if there’s any point in buying the new version of the game or whether it will, hopefully and likely, just be one big patch.

And what about the Beta? I assume I won’t be using my old character on the new Beta. Just creating a temporary character I won’t be able to use in the actual game.

Also, isn’t this more just of a really good patch to the old game rather than truly a new one? Vanilla servers? So are they keeping the old game around a little longer(as long as people want to play it, apparently?)? I thought they were closing the old game permanently. Does this mean I’ll have to choose whether to leave my old character in the old game or transfer it to the new one? Do I need to login before a certain date to do anything with my character?

I don’t know answers for your concerns directly, but you will be able to use your leveled characters in the new game as far as i understood, but some items, if not all, will become not playable lore ones. But be happy over all… you get a complete game for free… i think release shall be decembre, the 31. So check then and have fun.

i can only answer for the character part, any character data recorded uptill november 1st will be transferrable to the new realm, but any changes to the character after november 1st, will be untransferrable